After a tourist year with around 33 million visitors from abroad, the Greek government hopes that 2024 will also be a record year. And already the bookings are up to by 10% more compared to last year.

“But who will make the guests’ beds?”asks the correspondent of the financial inspection Handelsblatt in Athens, Gerd Heller. “In 2023 there were more than 53,000 vacancies in the hospitality industry” – and this year they could increase even more.

“The labor shortage is a growing problem. […] The tourism industry is not the only sector that needs more workers: in the construction sector there is a shortage of about 13,000 workers, in agriculture even 113,000. Employers report to the Public Employment Service that the total number of job vacancies reaches around 400,000 – at a time when the working population in Greece is a total of 4.27 million people.

Simultaneously the labor shortage is surprising at first glance, because Greece also has the second highest unemployment rate in the EU, after Spain”, continues the German journalist. But both the high unemployment rate and the labor shortage are due to the same condition: the economic crisis of the last decade.

In addition to economic problems, demographic issues also arose during these years: “Approximately 600,000 mainly young Greeks left for abroad. […] Between 2010 and 2020 the population decreased by 5.9%. […] And according to economists’ estimates, Greece is going to lose half a million workers by 2040″.

Although “conservative Prime Minister Mitsotakis has made the demographic issue a priority”, government programs and benefits “will have an impact on the labor market decades from now. And businesses can’t wait that long,” comments the HB correspondent.

This is also the reason why the Greek government plans to conclude agreements with other states, which will allow tens of thousands of foreign workers to immigrate to Greece. “The Minister of Immigration, Dimitris Kairidis, even wants to integrate illegal immigrants into the labor market: Anyone who has lived in Greece for at least three years can obtain a residence permit, if they have some legal employment.

[…] However, the plan is controversial, even by members of the ruling party. Critics claim that legalizing hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants will lead to increased immigration flows. But maybe it is exactly what Greece needs”.